


Plus One Cat, Minus One Archer

by Semebay



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Animal Transformation, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-08
Updated: 2015-04-02
Packaged: 2018-03-16 21:27:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3503333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Semebay/pseuds/Semebay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The cat in the tower isn't supposed to be there. Coulson's not sure what he's going to do if it doesn't leave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“No cats in the lab!” Tony announces, and Coulson looks up from where he’s clicking away on his laptop. When Tony tosses a gray bundle of fur on the couch with a crazed look in his eye, Coulson tabs out of his browser and gentle shuts the top.

“Did something happen?”

“No.” Tony narrows his eye at the cat, who simply stretches with a squeak and starts kneading the couch cushions. “No cats.” He turns and stomps down the hall towards his lab and Coulson raises an eyebrow.

“Whatever you did, you should do it again,” Coulson says, and the cat blinks at him before bounding off the couch after a fly. He watches it catch the fly with a single leap and a hiss, then opens his laptop and returns to typing.

Hours pass before he’s joined again, and in that time the cat catches seven more flies, hunts Thor’s favorite recliner, and manages to find a knife that had been hidden (or lost) behind a chair. Steve settles himself on the couch opposite Coulson and the cat immediately claims his lap and sprawls across him, batting playfully at the glass of water in his hand.

“How’s he been?” Steve asks, and the cat topples off his lap when it reaches too far.

“He’s a cat.” Steve waits, and Coulson shuts his laptop again and sighs. “He’s a cat that’s acting like a cat. A cat that doesn’t try to steal coffee anymore, and goes to whoever’s leg is closest, and jumps when someone sits on the couch next to him.” The cat spies another fly and Coulson watches as it darts out of the room in pursuit. “I don’t know if he’s still there.”

Steve looks to the door the cat disappeared to. He doesn’t say anything for a long time, and then the only thing he does is pat Coulson’s shoulder before he heads to the kitchen. He returns with coffee that tastes strongly of alcohol, and Coulson doesn’t thank him. He does, however, drink deeply.

* * *

 

Thor hasn’t been seen for three weeks; not since Clint was hit with a blast of energy on what was a rescue mission. It’s been twelve days since Clint stopped fighting Coulson for his coffee and started chasing reflections on the windows. It’s been four days since SHIELD scientists said that if Clint doesn’t turn back into a human soon, his mental state may never recover.

Coulson tries not to think of what he’ll do if he ends up with a cat and no archer. He can handle putting down cat food and bowls of water, and supplying a scratching post simply so he doesn’t have to hire someone (or have Tony hire someone) to fix the paneling in his living room. He just can’t imagine having to do this forever, knowing that his cat was once the man he slept with and wanted to spend his life with, the man that was lost to him through a freak incident on what was the safest assignment they’d had in years.

“We’ll get pizza when you turn back,” Coulson says every so often, when the cat sits on his lap and purrs louder than a quinjet. “We’ll have to catch up on Dog Cops. You’ve missed a lot.” It’s as much an attempt to reassure himself as it is a way to break the silence in his apartment. Clint hasn’t been around to knock over the side tables or curse when he stubs his toe on the kitchen island, and the apartment feels bigger without him.

Coulson does his paperwork and hands out team assignments with a cat on his laptop and no one slumped over his back, and he tells himself it won’t last forever.

* * *

 

The cat sits on Tony’s workshop table and stares into space. Coulson stands by the door while Tony makes it a mission to ignore the cat’s presence. The others are on their way down according to Jarvis, and Bruce is bringing with him more lab results. When the cat suddenly hisses at the air slightly above and to the left of Tony’s head, Tony spins and jabs out with a screwdriver. It meets only air, and the cat’s head jerks to the side, hair rising on its back as it continues to howl and hiss as something only it sees. Tony curses and shoves the cat off the table, and it continues to hiss at a fixed point in the air before it lunges, then streaks through the lab in pursuit. Tony slams his screwdriver down on the table and Coulson is sure he doesn’t imagine the way his eyes are dilated and his skin is a shade paler.

“Is there something going on?” Coulson asks, and Tony narrows his eyes.

“No,” Tony snaps. “Nothing.”

Coulson doesn’t push the issue when the door beside him slides open and Bruce follows Steve into the lab. Bruce shrugs his shoulders before anyone can say anything, and Coulson holds back a sigh as the cat jumps on the table and skids off the other side.

* * *

 

Thor returns with a bang in the middle of Central Park. Response teams have to be called off after the initial panic, and Coulson feels ice in his veins while he explains to Thor that he can’t keep doing this. Thor nods solemnly in understanding, and when he turns away to greet Iron Man, Coulson lets out a long breath. He swears he can see it hang in the air, and then the world shutters and goes dark.

When he opens his eyes, he’s overwhelmed by sensation. The world has gotten bigger, everything is louder, and the Black Widow is looking into his eyes in surprise. He raises a hand and brushes a paw against her chin, and then he panics.

Natasha bundles him into her jacket for the ride to the tower, and the first thing he sees when he is released is blinding light, then a gray ball of fluff that is cocking its head to the side in confusion. Coulson leans away and the cat laughs at him.

“Oh this is going to be fun,” the cat cackles.

Coulson slaps him.

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

Clint is scurrying out of the room by the time Coulson is back on four legs, and it takes him a moment to realize what he just did. He dodges the hands that reach out for him and takes off in pursuit, wondering how on earth he’s supposed to find Clint when he’s only twelve inches tall and can’t make JARVIS tell him. He was pretty sure cats were supposed to find each other by smell, but he can’t be bothered to figure out the intricacies of his new body while he’s struggling just to keep his feet aimed forward and his legs from tangling.

Coulson darts between a pair of recliners and ducks under a coffee table, and when he finally makes it through the kitchen and into the theater, he’s tackled by a ball of fluff and rolled under a couch. He can hear Steve calling for him, and he would be more embarrassed if it weren’t for the fact that Clint has settled on his stomach and is just barely pressing their noses together.

“So hi,” Clint says, and Coulson stares. “Welcome to the party.”

Coulson rolls away and Clint scrambles to stay upright. Once Coulson has positioned himself under the opposite end of the couch, he takes a deep breath, then another, and he can feel his ears flatten against the side of his head. Apparently his poker face doesn’t translate in cat.

“Do you have any idea what we’ve been through?” Coulson demands, and he’s mildly amused when he recognizes the hiss his words make. “What _I’ve_ been through? I thought you were a cat!”

Clint flicks an ear. “I am a cat.”

“Not the point!” Coulson thumps his tail against the floor, and Clint flops down bonelessly. “I thought you were… You weren’t you anymore.”

“It’s no big deal,” Clint says. He stretches out and rubs a paw against his face. “You would’ve found out when I turned back.”

Coulson wants to laugh. Instead he paces. He walks from corner to corner, steps around Clint, contorts himself over a brace in the bottom of the couch. He takes a moment to appreciate his flexibility, then takes a breath and turns back on Clint. “We don’t know how to turn you back.”

“I’ll turn back in three days. No biggie,” Clint says with a blink, and Coulson stops moving. He stares while Clint grooms himself, taking extra care to stretch his legs in the impossibly small space. He stares when Clint moves on to rolling across the floor. He stares when Clint stops in front of him, on his back, and starts to flew his paws at him.

“Why three days?” Coulson asks slowly, and Clint bats at him.

“The squirrel said so.”

Clint doesn’t say anything more about the squirrel. Instead, he rolls over onto his feet and positions himself at one end of the couch. His eyes are wide and he crouches into a hunting position, and that’s when Tony flips up the edge of the couch skirt and comes face to face with a rather terrified looking cat. Tony jumps, Clint jumps, and then Clint jerks to the side and races past him. Tony curses and Coulson watches as Clint looks back over his shoulder.

“I’ve had it up to _here_ with these damned cats!” Tony shouts, and Coulson flinches at how loud his words are. Hands slide under the couch from the opposite side and Coulson finds himself held in Steve’s arms, and he feels a silent terror at the idea that he is both a cat and being held like a child in the arms of a national icon. He sees Natasha standing in the doorway, and the slight tilt of her head and the curve of her lips informs him that once again his ears have betrayed him.

 

* * *

 

Clint finds him in his bed that night. Coulson had retreated there after escaping Steve’s overly helpful mother-henning, and had spent the last few hours trying to figure out Clint’s motives. He tells Clint as much when the bed sheets shift, and Clint looks like (god forbid) that cat that caught the canary.

“Do I ever have motives?” Clint asks, and Coulson narrows his eyes. “Besides the whole, you know. Chinese seduction. I had motives there.”

“That’s what you’re calling it now? Really?”

“What do you call it?” Clint plopped down on Coulson’s pillow and tilted his head.

“We’re getting off track. Explain why you thought it would be a good idea to make me believe that you had lost your mind. And this had better be good, because I swear I will-“

“Did you know Tony’s terrified of cats?” Clint cut in, and Coulson stuttered to a halt. “It’s true. All you have to do is sit there and stare at a spot on the wall and he twitches. Watch that spot for twenty minutes and then look at him, and he loses his shit.” When Coulson doesn’t answer, he shrugs. “I figured if I was gonna be a cat for a few more weeks, I should have fun with it. Free food, back rubs, catnip, harassing Tony. I thought it was a pretty good gig.”

Coulson shuts his eyes. “You made me believe that you lost your mind because you wanted to mess with Tony. I really can’t fault you for that-”

“ _See_?”

“-but how did you know it would be a few weeks?”

“The squirrel.”

Coulson opens his eyes and squints at Clint. “Where did you meet a squirrel? You’ve been in here since you turned.”

“They live in the attic,” Clint says matter-of-factly.

Coulson can’t decide if he wants to express his surprise that the tower has an attic, or the fact that squirrels have located it and moved in. He settles on the fact that in just a few short days, Clint will be human again and they will-

“I’m a cat,” Coulson realizes, and Clint snorts. It’s a weird snort and makes him sound like a dog toy.

“Yeah,” Clint says. “Yeah you are.” He rolls off the pillow and circles around Coulson. “Four more weeks for you. Four more days for me. Four more weeks of Tony locking himself in the lab and trying to escape because your soulless eyes are watching things he can’t see.”

Coulson supposes it’s not all bad, if that’s the case. “I will not eat anchovies,” he decides. “If you feed them to me, I will make you bleed.”

* * *

 

Coulson joins Clint in Tony’s workshop the following morning. Clint is silently staring at a spot above Tony’s right ear, and Coulson takes his time jumping up on the workbench. He looks around at the assorted pieces and projects, brushes a tail against Clint’s back, and then jerks to a stop and lets his eyes widen at the same spot over Tony’s ear. He freezes his entire body and crouches down ever so slowly. Tony throws his screwdriver on the floor and storms out of the lab.


End file.
